Bard
A poet-singer of the Celtic peoples who sang of heroic deeds and served as an early keeper of his people's history.
What it means
The bard was a poet-singer among the Celtic and, in related form, Germanic peoples. The word derives from Irish bard and Welsh bardh; the Scandinavian counterpart was the skald. Bards usually accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument such as the lyre or harp.
Musical use
At festivals, bards sang of the deeds of gods and heroes and accompanied armies into battle, using song to inspire warriors to great deeds. At the same time, they were their culture's chief historians: they transmitted religious ideas, put law into verse, and thereby preserved their people's collective knowledge in an age without widespread literacy.
The bard should be distinguished from the courtly Minnesänger of the European Middle Ages, who worked centuries later in a different social setting, and from the itinerant street ballad singer, who belonged to an entirely different, generally low-status entertainment culture.